PARIS – The news that Bush Receives Award for Environmentalism was reported by Rennie Petersen: “The little-known Paris-based environmental organization, Les Fous Français pour l’Environnement Mondial, have awarded former U.S. PresidentMORON George W. Bush with their ‘Environmentalist of the Year 2009’ award. Their press release includes the following statement: ‘As is well known, the basic problem with the environment is that there are too many people. Former President Bush is hereby lauded for his efforts during his presidency to reduce destructive environmental emissions by reducing the number of humans, especially in Iraq, but also in Afghanistan and the USA. We hope that Mr. Bush will participate at our annual meeting in October to personally receive our prestigious award.’ Although the press release also provides ‘honorable mention’ for The DICK and RUMMY there is no indication of any award for them.”

Just once I would like to see someone ask one of these teabagging tax revolt patriots exactly how much of the defense budget they would be willing to cut in order to reduce their tax burden and the size of the federal government. The Pentagon budget is estimated at about a half-trillion dollars a year, and the entire defense and security apparatus budget is estimated (no one knows for sure because funding for parts of the CIA, DARPA, the NSA, etc., are state secrets) at about one trillion (!) dollars per year. According to its website, the Department of Homeland Security has a budget of just about 60 billion dollars for fiscal year 2010.

To put that into some sort of perspective: We spend on our defense and intelligence budgets in one year more than the entire projected ten year cost of the (watered down) health reform initiatives now before congress and decried by the Beckian right wing as fiscally irresponsible. (And let’s not even talk about how that money could help the United States once again become the best educated country in the world (we are now in the 30s somewhere) or the healthiest (again somewhere in the 30s) or, heaven forfend, the greenest).

On another note: An article in the NY Times today talked about a town in Kansas that was once a mineral mining capital and very affluent, but with the closure of the mines, all that is left is a contaminated piece of dirt inhabited by about 140 people. The neighboring town, in Oklahoma, was declared a Superfund site, and the federal government bought out all of the residents and they were relocated. However, the government determined that the contaminated areas on the Kansas side were not in the residential part of town and they declined to buy out the Kansas residents.

Kansas is represented by Brownbeck and Roberts, two of the most conservative senators we have, both of whom have decried the intrusion of the government into health care and have paraded for their entire careers under the Reaganesque “free enterprise, government is the problem” ideology. Guess what they are calling for? They want the federal government to buy out the residents of Treece, Kansas, as well. So much for the miracle of the free market taking care of its problems — these people did, after all, choose to live in this town and now they want a bailout from the taxpayers? And so much for wanting to shrink the federal government. And so much for not wanting government “interference” in the market. What a bunch of horseshit. With the courage of their convictions, these senators would be opposed to bailing these people out just as they have opposed every single welfare bill of any sort for any person presented to them. Pandering bastards. (And one wonders how many of the residents of that town are also hard core conservatives who have regularly voted against the evil washington bureaucrats controlling their lives. Bet they opposed EPA regulation of the mines when they were active, too.)